finishing dolly, carpeting garage +3 hrs = 13hrs

adding a little height to the dolly and carpetted the top to stop any scratching

now looks like this





Time tracking – +10hrs = 10 hrs

I’m keen to note time spent on the project, and have a system for doing this.

I suspect i will put time spent and total inthe subject line

not sure if that will cheer me up or sadden me!

Trickle of parts appearing

Bit by bit some small but essential tools/bits are appearing.

i.e 10m of bubblewrap, some annoyingly expensive silicone sealant (good I read (silkaflex 291)), a sharp 4.1mm drill bit.

A bit of carpet is in the garage now, it’s not really bit enough so I will try and source some more at the weekend.

A call to FootmanJames seems to have got some form of insurance for the parts sorted.

And in sorting the insurance i now have the VIN for the car – seems a bit premature getting a VIN given how far there is to go!

Anyway, lots of little noddy prep jobs are getting done, it’s gone from bags of time ’till the 17th to weekends becoming sparce.

Ah yea, after several emails the van rental people have answered all my very simple questions – painful.

Colour choice…

I’m opting not to take the bodywork when i collect the first part of the kit next month… parly to avoid any deformation, mainly because i have very little space to play with.

It would also assume i had made the decision around what colour the bodywork and wings should be…

My instant thought is Orange – it’s a fairly unique car so a crazy colour should work. Also my first car was an orange VW ’73 beetle. I really enjoyed the orange beetle, so id quite like to relive the “standout” car.

Laura and Idid go through some car colour configurers online – she wasnt keen on orange initially favoring something like electric blue.  Although very nice i think orange will win out… we will see.

A long way to go before i get to that stage!

Took my new axel stands out the box earlier – adjustable ratchet sorts from halfords, did amuse me that they could take 1000kg each. So one single stand (of the four i now have) could take substancially more weight than the finished article!

The Dolly 95% finished

Maybe a little more height to add?

As you see it is made of wood, a fair few bits of 100mmx50mm treated wood. nice and strong, sat on some heavy duty castors.

I’d hope it will take the car up to the point i need it and will help the single garage situation

Around 10 hours to get me to this stage?

EDIT re adding photo for some reason it disappeared …

Van rental

Van rental booked – that’s another job sorted hopefully!

need to source some 4.1mm drill bits for rivetting panels, a nice little job!

Discovered how easy it is to take photos on phone and send to SkyDrive – so hopefully will be utilising this

few more tools/resources

1.8 mx5 stripdown book appeared today, i had the 1.6 one (doh) so hopefully between them some light will be shed. hard to say how difficult these things are from lots of words and small piccies… we will see

tin snips arrived, that should be 95% of the tools required – hmm, perhaps optomistic

dolly now looks like a dolly, is like a capital I and wheels around, rather happy with it infact. just need to add a little height at the two ends, nothing some more strong wood wont fix

have day off work of 16th booked 🙂 just need to book this van now… it’s all coming together

EDIT i dont know why i keep mentioing the 16th – I’m picking it up on the Friday 17th, keep confusing myself now!

17th, 17th, 17th…

Dolly finishing

Taking longer than i expected to do the final bits to it.
As with most things it’s taking 3x longer than anticipated, hopefully not a trend that continues!

looking good though, nice stability hopefully, and enough height to work under (sort of) comfortably

Have a date i can collect the chassis… ~16th Dec

Hello world!

Well, after what must be 5 years of consideration, dreaming and research at last I have taken the step.

Since being at Uni I have wanted to build a kit car, I’ve always absolutely loved cars and preferred cars a little different.

My first step was building something, mainly to keep me amused, so I set on with putting a car dolly together, especially useful given the single garage!

With this very nearly finished the next part required was some Westfield.

After a visit to the factory a couple of years ago, and a track day in the Westfield I was hooked.

Last Saturday I visited the Exeter Kit Car show, knowing Westfield would be there, after watching one of their cars pirouette around some cones I felt it could be the day… After a few questions, a calls to interested parties (Thanks Mum and Laura!)it felt like the right thing to do at last…

After a chat with Simon I had the order placed for the MX5 SDV starter kit. That and powder coated parts, exterior panels and detachable arches.

The thinking is to go for a 1.8 mx5 donor set from mx5 heaven, some building needs to be done first!

That’s all for now, I’ll bolt the dolly together fully and upload some pics.

Email today from WF letting me know i can pickup the kit ~16th Dec
Can’t wait